To Bomb or not to Bomb

Being miscast in a made for TV movie with a bad script can kill a career but it may have revived Lindsay Lohan's. "Liz & Dick" was a dreadful waste of a viewers time and a producers money and it wasn't Lindsay's fault. The script was insipid at best and the direction slipshod. The dialogue in this train wreck was hackneyed at best and the character development was nonexistent. Grant Bowler did a yeoman's work as Richard Burton and was the most believable and fleshed out of all the characters in the 90 minute catastrophe. The secondary characters were all flatter than flat with some of the worst dialogue written since Ed Wood was writing. One has to pity the actress playing Sara Taylor and Sybil Burton as their dialogue was just embarrassingly bad.
Sadly "Liz & Dick" isn't even funny bad just bad bad. The only redeeming factor was Lindsay's make up and hair.

The costumes were also rather disappointing. Elizabeth Taylor was know in the 60's and 70's for her frankly wild and often unflattering outfits in the version of her life they toned it down having her appear nearly pedestrian. Where were the turbans and the Pucci's? Here and there a fur hat would appear but never did Lindsay have that Elizabeth Taylor flair. The only time Lindsay ever achieved a truly "Liz" look was at the end of the evening's horror show when they brought out the 80's hair and shoulder pads.
Lindsay was trying hard you could see but was given so little to try with. Did she look like Elizabeth Taylor? Sometimes yes and sometimes no. Did she capture the essence of Taylor? Generally she did not and it is really hard to fault her as the direction and dialogue was so pathetic. Will this film kill her career? It is doubtful but it hasn't done anything to further it either. What she got was press and as the cliche goes there is no such thing as bad press.